Stress and Staying Alive

You and everybody else alive encounter stress, daily, hourly and minute byminute. As unavoidable, inscrutable, and sometimes as aggressive as the IRS,stress is part of the human condition. It is not just a sense of being tense butis any event that causes a complex physiologic response called the "stressresponse."

While most people view stress as being something that is always negative, stressin fact can be good or bad. Negative stress can be caused by many things, suchas the death of a spouse or something as simple as being stuck in traffic.Positive stress can be the type you encounter in dating, public speaking,running a 5K race and many other daily activities.

There are, however, relatively easy to follow and effective ways to managestress. We'll take a look at how humans respond to stress, and the problems anddiseases associated with it, as well as some of the more notable methods used tomitigate it.

The Evolution from Infection to Stress

During the first part of the 20th century most deaths in the United States weredue to infectious diseases. The diseases that our great-grandparents worriedabout were, among others, pneumonia, influenza and polio. Today, we are morelikely to be concerned about heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer. Whileit is not scientifically sound to say that all of these problems are caused bystress, we're on fairly solid ground when we suggest that stress does have animpact on blood vessel disease – heart disease, stroke, hypertension -"metabolic syndrome" (defined below) and even diabetes.

Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a professor of neurology at Stanford University, says thatwe suffer from diseases of luxury. Generally speaking, we eat too much, exercisetoo little and live very stressful lives, usually without ever stopping to thinkabout ways to manage our stress. We don't typically die at the age of 35 frompneumonia but live longer and suffer from diseases that are essentially the slowaccumulation of damage – with much of the damage due to stress.

In the 1920s, Harvard scientist Dr. Walter Cannon studied the short-termeffects of stress on laboratory animals. This was before the term "stress" waseven used in physiologic studies. He found that when faced with danger, animalsresponded with what he referred to as a "fight-or-flight" reaction. This was, infact, an initial stress response. Further studies suggested that "fight orflight" was a reaction that was innate and consistent across species. Bloodpressure, blood sugar, heart rate and respiratory rate all would go up.

What happens to animals placed under longer-term conditions of high stress?Canadian endocrinologist Dr. Hans Selye did much of the early work on stress andwas even the first to apply the term "stress" to animal physiology. Hediscovered early on that stress in laboratory animals caused ulcers, a reductionin their immune response and the ramped-up production of a hormone calledcortisol.

It turned out that stress caused a plethora of responses, which came to be knownsimply as "the stress response." The two primary hormones in the stress responseare epinephrine (a.k.a. Adrenaline®) and cortisol (similar tohydrocortisone, prednisone, medrol and others). Both hormones cause an increasein blood sugar. Short term, this makes sense. Long term, it can be devastating.For example, you wake up one night and smell smoke. You stress response kicks inand a number of things happen almost immediately:

You turn off digestion (now is not the time to digest the steak that you ate for dinner)

Your immune response is suppressed (now is not the time for your body to worry about catching a cold)

Your mind is clear, your senses are heightened and the situation may seem to occur in slow motion. You arise, wake your spouse and rapidly leave the house.

This is an effective acute stress response. However if this response ismaintained long-term, damage ensues.

One way of describing stress is to say that it is anything that knocks you outof balance; physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. Humans have the ability tonot only recognize that they have been knocked out of balance, but also theability to recognize that they are about to be knocked out of balance.

If you correctly predict a stressor, then you may be able to avoidunpleasantness or an emergency; for example, paying your bills on time or movingout of the way of a speeding taxi. However, if you constantly incorrectlypredict stressors or view small problems as being larger than they really arethen the volume on your stress-response system will be turned up all of thetime.

Too Much of a Good Thing

In today's society, most of us probably have stress-response volumes turned upto eight or nine out of 10. Dr. Saplosky said about the stress response system,"It was a system designed to be turned on for 30 seconds and we turn it on for30 years worrying about Social Security." We turn on this very effective, butarchaic, system, which was primarily designed to allow us to escape physicaltrouble, and we keep it on long-term for psychological reasons.

Does long-term activation of the stress-response system cause psychological andphysical problems? Yes. Continuous long-term stress run amuck can result in orworsen fatigue, digestive problems, impotency, amenorrhea (the abnormalcessation of menstruation), increased infections, elevated blood pressure,elevated blood sugar, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and more. Notsurprisingly, it also causes a reduction in a sense of wellbeing.

Several years ago, Gerald Reaven, MD, now a professor emeritus at StanfordUniversity School of Medicine, noticed that many of his patients with type 2diabetes often would come to his clinic with high blood pressure, obesity,amenorrhea, high blood fats, cardiac disease and several other problems. Becauseof his observations, this collection of problems came to be known as Reaven'ssyndrome. Later it was called insulin resistance syndrome and syndrome-X, and isnow referred to as metabolic syndrome.

You must have at least three of the following problems in order to be diagnosedwith metabolic syndrome:1) abdominal obesity; 2) high triglycerides; 3) low HDL(good cholesterol); 4) high blood pressure; and 5) high blood glucose. Manypeople with type 2 diabetes also have metabolic syndrome and many people withmetabolic syndrome who do not have diabetes will eventually develop it.

Last year researchers published a study in the British Medical Journal thatevaluated the association between stress at work and the development ofmetabolic syndrome. This study, carried out in London, measured job-relatedstress in more than 10,000 people working in civil service over a 14-yearperiod. Researchers found that the greater the demands of the job were and theless control that the worker had over it, the greater the stress – and also agreater chance of developing metabolic syndrome.

Workers with chronic stress had a twofold greater chance of developing metabolicsyndrome. Scientists reasoned that high stress levels caused elevated cortisollevels in the workers, which in turn caused elevated glucose, elevated insulinresistance, low HDL, and other abnormalities in fat disposition.

What Can You Do About Stress?

So what, if anything, can be done to mitigate the deleterious effects of chronicstress in an era of information overload, long work hours, constant e-mails, 999television channels, war, global warming and the sky-is-falling mentalityfostered by the contemporary press? Could ancient solutions be useful fortoday's problems? The answer appears to be a resounding "yes"!

In the 1970s Harvard cardiologist Herbert Benson, MD, coined the phrase"relaxation response," the key to managing chronic stress. Benson published aseminal manuscript in the journal Psychiatry in 1974 that reported that after 20minutes of meditation (not medication) an individual's blood pressure, heartrate, respiratory rate, oxygen use, lactic acid production and carbon dioxideproduction all dropped. This short period of quieting the mind seemed to causereversal of the stress-response.

A more recent work published by Tobias Esch at The Mind/Body Institute atHarvard suggests that the relaxation response can be achieved by not onlymeditation but also by some forms of prayer, Tai Chi and Yoga. Other activities,such as imagery, affirmations, biofeedback and distance running may have thesame effect but have not been as well studied. It does seem, based on what wecurrently know, that you must get yourself into a quiet state of mind in orderto realize the benefits of the relaxation response.

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, an expert on meditation at the University of MassachusettsSchool of Medicine, says that for the majority of his patients, regardless ofdiagnosis, meditation resulted in reduced anxiety, depression and hostility.Also, studies have also shown that meditators have a more profound positiveresponse to the same immune system stimulus when compared to non-meditators.

You do not need a guru, or even a trip to India in order to get into the stateof mind that causes this relaxation response. You need only four things:

A relatively quiet place (or a loud place with noise-canceling headphones)

A mental device – something to focus your thoughts on. This can be a simple word like "peace" or "hope;" or a short prayer or phrase that you can repeat over and over; or a sound like "Om," the traditional Hindu chant; or simply focus on your breathing

A passive attitude that in a non-judgmental, non-critical manner will allow you to return to the object of focus when other thoughts intrude – and other thoughts will intrude

A comfortable position, such as sitting in a chair with your feet flat on the ground or on a cushion on the floor (but either way with your back uplifted).

Spend 10 to 20 minutes as relaxed as possible while focusing on your chosenmental device. When outside thoughts intrude simply refocus on the mentaldevice. If you do this daily for a week or two you will see a profound shift inyour perception of daily life. Try it and see.

Another useful technique for stress mitigation is yoga. Yoga, depending on thetype that you practice, may serve the dual purpose of quieting the mind andoffering a physical workout. Yoga studios have proliferated almost as fast acell phones over the past decade and it is difficult to walk more that a fewblocks in any urban area without coming across one or more of them.

However, to the uninitiated yoga can be confusing, complicated, and even a bitstrange. Before you launch into a yoga class for your first time, shop aroundand do a bit of research. Call the studio and talk to an instructor and tell himor her about your current level of physical activity and your previousexperience or lack of with yoga. If you are not physically active, talk to yourphysician before starting yoga.

Keep in mind that yoga comes in many flavors: Ashtanga, Bikram, Iyengar,Kundalini, Hatha and others. Some forms are extremely physically demanding andsome, such as Bikram, could even potentially be dangerous for a person withdiabetes. For first-timers, Hatha yoga is a good bet. It is widely practiced inthe United States, is relatively gentle, focuses on poses and breathing, is veryrelaxing and is a great stress reliever.

Does yoga really offer benefits? Yes. Studies have demonstrated that yoga, alongwith psychosocial support, low-fat diet and moderate aerobic exercise, hasdramatic effects on reducing and even perhaps reversing cardiovascular problems.Many of the studies in the area were carried out by Dean Ornish, MD, from theUniversity of California, San Francisco. More recently, Dr. Sally Blank atWashington State University did a study on cancer survivors that demonstratedthat yoga intervention caused an improvement in the immune status, a reductionin anxiety and pain, and a reduction in depression in the study subjects.

What else can we do to mitigate stress? Generally speaking, studies havesuggested that stress is more damaging if we:

Have no outlet for it

Have no way to predict when stress will occur and have no control over our stressors

Are socially isolated.

Interestingly enough, social isolation is one the strongest predictors ofnegative medical outcomes. Socially isolated individuals have threefold higherdeath rates, cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, are more likely to smoke,and are more likely to be obese than are similar individuals who are sociallyaffiliated.

So, the key is to work on developing outlets for stress; learn something new,create something, challenge yourself. Try to gain the advantage over thesituations that cause you stress. Ask for help, talk with others to seek asolution, set limits. Have friends and take good care of them. Thomas Jeffersonsaid, "But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine oflife; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of lifeis sunshine."

Esch et al. The Therapeutic Use of the RR in Stress-Related Diseases. Med SciMonit, 2003;9(2):23-34

Ornish et al. The Lifestyle Heart Trial. Lancet 1990;336:129-33

Sapolsky R. Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. Third Edition, 2004

Dr. White has been extensively involved in the field of diabetes since 1987. Hehas published two books, 17 book chapters, and more than 70 manuscripts on thetopic of diabetes. He has secured more than $1.5 million in diabetes-relatedresearch grants and has received numerous awards, including Teacher of the Yearat Washington State University's College of Pharmacy in 1992 and 1996.Currently, he is serving as a diabetes consultant and primary care provider atthe Indian Health Service Clinic in Wellpinit, Wash.

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